The Guardian has been named best-designed national title at the European Newspaper Awards for its Berliner relaunch.

Judges from eight European countries concluded that the Guardian's relaunch in a new format in September last year was an "exciting example of how extensive redesign and preservation of characteristic features can go together".

"The Guardian has been given a new format, a new column-width, new typefaces, a new house colour and a new masthead. Despite of all these changes the newspaper has kept its identity because their page makeup and their use of visuals has not been altered," the judges said.

"The Guardian is an exciting example of how extensive redesign and preservation of characteristic features can go together. A special success is their reduction to the Berlin format so that they can continue to separate the paper into individual sections."

Now in its seventh year, the European Newspaper Awards celebrates press design across the continent, with 260 titles entering in 2006.

The competition is organised by German newspaper designer Norbert Küpper, in cooperation with the Frankfurt-based journalists' magazine Medium Magazin and Der Osterreichische Journalist.

Other winners of this year's awards include Germany's Die Zeit and Kauppalehti Presso of Finland, which shared the best designed weekly prize; Ostersunds Posten of Sweden, which came out on top in the local paper category; and Austria's Kleine Zeitung, named best-designed regional title.

The judges' special recognition award went to the Lisbon-based Diario de Noticias.